


Each Ragged Breath and the Pause Between

by deathwailart



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First Kiss, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 10:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3407615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only Aela joins Hjördís at the forge when she works long into the night, only ever Aela.  Wherein even badass Nord ladies can enjoy a moment of remembering how they met and they are absolutely not pining at one another.</p><p>Between your lips,<br/>the dark field meets a night sky. I am inside<br/>each ragged breath and the pause between.</p><p> - Carole Glasser Langille</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each Ragged Breath and the Pause Between

Even though her home in Whiterun is right next to Warmaiden's, Hjördís still journeys to the Skyforge to do the bulk of her smithing unless it happens when she's miles away or it's just a quick patch job or those nights when she smelts ore into ingots. Warmaiden's has more shade and it's closer to her home where she actually keeps all her supplies but she always appears in the evenings, after Eorlund is done and back with his family. Sometimes the new Harbinger has been gone for weeks, sometimes it's part of her daily routine when back in Whiterun, mending her gear or making a few items as gifts or to sell; her father was a smith, so she told Aela once, and he taught her all she knew by the time he passed. Most of the time Hjördís is left in peace because Eorlund isn't one for small talk either so it's normal to just stay away from the forge unless you actually need something mended. It's hot besides and the smell catches in your nose and throat, lingering until you feel faintly ill and smithing is a noisy job. Anything important gets brought to her attention within the walls of Jorrvaskr, same as any talking or catching up. Only Aela routinely joins her because she's either asked – almost shyly given who and what Hjördís is – or because the invitation has always stood since that first time. Aela won't deny that she likes the view, Hjördís with her muscles strong and shoulders broad, sleeves rolled up as she swings down a hammer to beat metal into submission, a lifetime at the forge or fighting making her look like a hero of old carved from Skyrim herself. It's a time for her and Aela to actually sit down and talk, enjoying one another's company away from everyone else, only the stars, Secunda and Masser to bear witness. There are things said they'd never repeat in front of another soul, Hjördís admitting how homesick she gets when she hears wolves howling as she wades through deep snowdrifts or prowls through the forests, or how Aela will turn to talk to her far too often when she's on a long hunt. Sentimentality isn't practical in Skyrim but it exists as it would in any other place.  
  
Still, tonight is different when Hjördís appears after dinner in an old shirt that's seen better days, the stitches at the shoulders coming loose, smears of soot and coal from where she's wiped her hands streaking it.  
  
"I have everything I need at last," she confides, one strong hand wrapping around Aela's arm as she shoulders a heavy looking sack. "Remember when I asked you to come hunting dremora with me?"  
  
Aela nods, both of them dodging a drunken Torvar who shambles past them. "Is that where you were? Off mining ebony ore?"  
  
"It pays to be friends with orcs," Hjördís says with a shrug.  
  
"You're going to look like a damned fool," Aela mutters. It's not the sort of armour she favours and she's used to what her shield brothers and sisters wear. For herself, she prefers something the old Nords would have worn all the way back when the women of her family first became Companions but she's worn other things when needed. Daedric armour though? She's seen a lot of it lately thanks to the hunting for hearts and she tries to picture Hjördís in it but it's almost impossible.  
  
"I'll be protected. I spend most of my days fighting these damned dragons," Hjördís points out, setting the sack down at the forge with a sigh, rolling her shoulder. "Might even frighten them."  
  
"You've spent too much time with milk-drinkers and Farkas." But even as she says it she takes a seat and opens the sack, the smell of the hearts not bothering her in the slightest. It's still a little jarring, that no matter how long they've been out – and it's almost tradition, for one to be sitting on a plate just before the Harbinger's quarters and she can't recall if it was always that way because she's left them there too, without ever needing to be prompted – they still stay so red and firm, still wet enough to the touch that they could have been freshly ripped from the chest of an ugly beast if it weren't for how cold they are. There are neat stacks of ingots, the required leather too and she can imagine Hjördís sorting it all out, counting out just how much she'd need.  
  
She's practical, as practical as one can be in these times at least, Aela can admire and respect that.  
  
"It's going to be quite the project," the Nord warns as she ties her dark hair back.  
  
"I've got the time and when you need a break, we'll use the underforge to get out, go run wild."  
  
"It's been too long, hasn't it?" If it were anyone else or if she were a bard, she'd almost say that Hjördís sounded wistful, maybe even longing but that's not quite right. Maybe that's just what Aela wants.  
  
"We are all in charge of ourselves here, Kodlak never pried, you've always fought with honour and respected what it means to be one of us, we wouldn't force you to stay. You're..." Aela pauses, searching for the words. She can do a good speech on the Companions, she can toast with the very best of them but how does she describe Hjördís without sounding like some moon-eyed lovesick fool? "Well, you've heard the songs I'm sure, you're different to all the rest."  
  
"That means a lot, coming from someone like you." Hjördís smiles and gets to work, raising her voice to be heard over the clang of her hammer. Aela wants to reach out and touch her but there might have been looks on both parts because they're hunters and not stupid but no words, not yet. "You were one of the first people I met when I came back home."  
  
"You've never told me that before."  
  
"It seemed silly at the time, I don't know why I even brought it up but I met Ulfric and Ralof, a few other Stormcloaks and Ralof's family who took me in but you were the first person to speak to me as if I was just another person, not a prisoner, not a fellow escapee who witnessed a dragon attack." She wipes sweat from her brow, war paint smearing down her cheek and glances over at Aela. "Stupid, right?"  
  
"Not everyone would charge in to fight a giant, you did." She can still remember that day, after all it's not often a giant is so close to the very gates of the Hold you live in. "I was...I was glad, when you decided to come and prove your worth."  
  
"Weren't you fighting with Njada?"  
  
Aela laughs, a harsh bark of a thing that gets swallowed by Hjördís beating ebony ingots into shape. "Someone has to keep her in line, wasn't going to be any of the rest of them."  
  
"I don't think I'll ever know if she thinks I've poured honey or piss in her mead the way she acts."  
  
"It's how she's always been, don't go looking for her to change, not even for the Harbinger."  
  
There's a hiss when she plunges whatever she's shaping into the water and the gout of steam given off means Aela doesn't see the water coming until it hits her, not the whole bucket but a decent splash.  
  
"Oh you'll pay for that!"  
  
Hjördís only laughs, setting her tools and work down with care before Aela lunges at her.  


* * *

  
  
Hjördís stays in Jorrvaskr far longer than she has in a while. There are couriers who appear with missives, anxiously handing them over to whoever opens the doors, not that Hjördís ever actually heads off. She stays, she takes jobs from them, she goes on hunts with all of them in turn. A dragon attacks near Whiterun, right behind the Skyforge and they leap down over the walls so that by the time the guards and whoever else might show up to fight get there it's dead, only bones, a few scales and whatever the thing swallowed, the rest burning away before Hjördís.  
  
Aela wants to kiss her then and there, wants to grab her and see what a dragon's soul tastes like, if Hjördís's mouth is filled with blood from the shouts she unleashed when she wasn't hacking at the legs as Aela found vulnerable points to fill with arrows.  
  
So Hjördís stays and works on her new armour that slowly takes shape at night, somehow looking less ridiculous than it does on any dremora, perhaps because she's tailoring it here and there with a critical eye, allowing her more movement with her broad shoulders but narrow hips. It's just the details that take the longest, sitting to shape all the little bits and pieces, that strange red glow that comes from those dead hearts and it's eerie but perhaps it shouldn't be, not when so many draugr Aela has fought in her life wear armour that could be her own. She takes the time to repair what damage the dragon inflicted upon everyone else too, Eorlund choosing to focus on their weapons. They're still singing about it in the hall, the doors open to let the night air in and Aela smiles down at her home, at her family.  
  
"You can join them if you'd like," Hjördís says and she hasn't spoken in so long that it startles Aela out of her daydream of Hjördís and those white bones before her, sword planted on the ground as she threw her head back, face tilted up to the winter sun with the sweat rolling down her neck as she grinned in triumph, teeth bared. The only better sight is when she's a wolf with Aela, when they just _run_ and hunt and tear apart anything that tries to challenge them. "I'm not good company tonight, shaping this-" she gestures with one hand at the helm in her lap, "is going to be the death of me."  
  
"I'd rather be here," Aela tells her and means it, swallowing hard with a suddenly dry throat. "With you."  
  
Hjördís looks up from the helm and down from Aela who doesn't flinch. "Oh," she murmurs, "oh." The helm is set down, dirty hands wiped on her trousers as she leans closer to Aela, glancing between her eyes and her lips. "Is this-"  
  
"Too much talk," Aela mutters and she tilts up her chin and pulls Hjördís down so their lips meet for the first time, mead and smoke and a metallic tang from the forge and her breath catches in her throat the way it does right before she looses an arrow. Hjördís is smiling when they part and Aela's heart is thumping fit to burst.  
  
"We're not going to be missed," she says, gathering her unfinished helm up under her arm, "I think we've wasted enough time haven't we?"  
  
They make it as far as the underforge and Aela thinks about how it was she who first spoke to Hjördís and made her want to join, how it's her blood that transformed the Dragonborn into a werewolf, how the two of them avenged Skjor and in the end set Kodlak's spirit to rest. They've wasted far too much time and as she wrestles Hjördís to the ground, she knows that she's unwilling to waste a second more.

**Author's Note:**

> Set prior to [Coming Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3354956)


End file.
